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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 377 



SCIENCE: 



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NEW YOEK, April 25, 1890. 



No. 377. 



The Suppression op Consump- 

 tion. G. W. Hambleton 253 



^OTES AND News 259 



Editorial. 

 JEducation in the Argentine Re- 

 public 260 



Mentai, Science. 

 A Study of Movements in Young 



Children 260 



The Sensations of Movement 261 



CONTENTS: 



Book-Reviews. 



A Primer of Phonetics 261 



Simple Elements of Navigation . . 262 



A Century of Electricity 262 



The Elements of Laboratory 



Work 262 



Among the Publishers 26-3 



Letters to the Editor. 

 The Psychrometer. H. A Hazen 264 



All the States op South and Middle America have of late 

 years shown great solicitude about the condition of the national 

 ■education, but none more so than the Argentine Republic. Dr. J. 

 B. Zubiar has just published a little pamphlet entitled " Quelques 

 Euots sur riustruction dans la Eepublique Argentine " (Paris). He 

 is inspector of the national schools and training-colleges, and was 

 Siis country's delegate at the last Paris exhibition and at the peda- 

 gogical congress held on that occasion. The object of his pam- 

 phlet is to show to the civilized world what progress the Argen- 

 ^ne Republic has made since it succeeded in shaking off the 

 clerical government of Spain, which had for three centui-ies held 

 it down. The following facts need no comment. In 1810 the 

 -only places where teaching went on were a theological college 

 .-and a few schools isept by priests, who taught the 3'oung idea 

 Blow to shoot chiefly by means of the cane. In 1888, after fifty 

 years of independence, there ai'e for the forty million inhabitants 

 fewjj aniversities with three faculties each, 1.5 colleges, 34 train- 

 Sirg-colleges with 758 professors and 11,365 pupils, 2,263 elemen- 

 dary schools with 4,744 teachers and 175,239 pupils (which gives 

 a,tt average of 34 to each class only), and, besides, 831 private ele- 

 snentary schools with 1,094 teachers and 33,723 pupils, —altogether 

 3,227 schools with 254.608 pupils. In commenting on this report, 

 She Journal of Education, London, states that the great impulse 

 ia education was given by the law of 1789, and ever since the 

 ■work has rapidly extended. In one year, 1887-88, there was an 

 increase of 109 schools, with 1,000 teachers and ^7,158 pupils. 



MENTAL SCIENCE. 

 A Study of Movements in Young Children. 



Modern science attaches great importance to the study of be- 

 ginnings, and such study is quite as promising and interesting in 

 the field of mental as of physical facts. The origin and growth 

 of human faculty as exemplified in the development of the child 

 claims an especial importance on account of its very general and 

 educational interest. Quite a number of child biographies have 

 been written from this point of view, and the period has now 

 come when special studies of particular lines of development and 

 acquisition of faculty are made. A recent study by M. Binet 

 {Revue Philosophique, March, 1890) deals with the following four 

 points: the co-ordination of movements in walking, the bilateral 

 character of movements, automatism in movements, and re-action 

 times. 



The study of how children learn to walk has been confined 

 mainly to determining the age at which independent locomotion 

 begins: this in the average of a number of infants was found to 

 be at about eighteen months. It varies considerably with the 

 health and growth of the child, and also with the degree of at- 

 tention the child gives to the learning of it. M. Binet tells of 

 two sisters, the elder of whom learned to walk at twelve months 

 by carefully and persistently leaning on one chair, feeling the 

 way to the next, and so on; while the younger, who was stronger 

 and had every opportunity of learning quickly, made very intense 

 but irregular efforts to walk, and did not succeed until her fif- 

 teenth month. This difference of character has been maintained, 

 the elder being calm, serious, and not easily distracted, while 

 the younger is exuberant, easily distracted, and volatile. The 

 origin of the tentative movements resulting in walking, Preyer 

 regards as instinctively inherited, and in this opinion M. Binet 

 concurs. The latter observed in an infant onh" thr.ee weeks old 

 alternate movements of the legs when the child was held with 

 the legs free to move, and the soles of the feet were in contact 

 with any substance. Repeated experiments showed that if the 

 child were held with its feet above the ground, no such alter- 

 nating movements of the legs occurred, but as soon as the feet 

 touched the floor these movements were refiexly excited. This 

 seems to indicate that the movements of walking are instinctive; 

 it also indicates that the fact of walking being a power which the 

 child acquires somewhat late does not interfere with its instinc- 

 tive character. 



If one observes the spontaneous, explosive movements of the 

 arms and legs of infants a few weeks old, one will notice a great 

 preponderance of bilateral movements; the two arms or the two 

 legs moving together, or, if not quite together, alternating so rap- 

 idly as to amount to the same thing. The contrast in this respect 

 between the infant and a child of two or three years is very 

 marked. Of 57 movements made by an infant one week old, 

 only 13 were unilateral, 25 were bilateral, and 23 of the rapidly 

 alternating kind. This tendency towards bilateral movements 

 can be observed in older children. Rubber tubes were placed in 

 the hands of a three-and-a -half-year-old child with the request 

 that at a given signal she should press only one of the tubes. 

 The record showed very frequently that both were pressed, and 

 other irregularities occurred. In connection with these move- 

 ments, M. Binet's attention was called to the expression of fear 

 in the child when not securely held. This was very evident by 

 its crying, which ceased as sobn as the child was securely held. 

 This occurred before the child had had a fall, and so would sug- 

 gest a sort of instinctive fear of falling, — a fear, which does not 

 exist with regard to fire, for instance. 



Recent researches have attached great importance to the phe- 

 nomena of automatism, or the subconscious reception of sensa- 

 tion, and execution of appropriate movements. In a single child 

 such automatism was evident during the first six months of life. 

 If the child's hand were open, a light pre.«sure on the thumb suf- 

 ficed to make it close, and when closed a stroking of the back of 

 the hand opened it. This succeeded as well whether the child was 

 awake or asleep, whether the child directed its attention to the 

 hand or not. The same automatic faculty comes to the front in 

 many ways. If a child's interest is held towards a certain point. 



